Dull Tool Dim Bulb

Antique Folk Art Turnwheel Crank Whirligig Sculpture

Antique Folk Art Turnwheel Crank Whirligig Sculpture made from Cigar Boxes, circa 1940 Collection Jim Linderman

Folk Art Carving Pair of Barn Buzzards! Turkey Vultures

A pair of large, hand carved Turkey Vultures! Aieeee! Also known as Turkey Buzzard, John Crow or Carrion Crow. These wooden figures (in original paint) were possibly used as decoys to scare away vermin? I have no idea, but they certainly seem appropriate for the season.

"Turkey Vultures are accustomed to living near humans and snacking off of our leavings. You will often see them in farm fields or hanging out next to the road. However, they are not likely to be in your backyard unless something has died…" Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

Pair of wooden turkey vultures, circa 1940 Collection Jim Linderman

Untitled (Big Head Parade of 1940) Vintage Snapshot

Untitled (Big Head Parade of 1940) Vintage Snapshot photograph by Leslie H. Gardner November 1940 collection Jim Linderman

Was Dan DeCarlo Influenced by Bettie Page ? Veronica is a Bettie

The visually acuity team here at Dull Tool Dim Bulb finds proof the 1950s comics were as bad as Kefauver and his confederates thought. Veronica is BETTIE. Page, to be exact. Here Dan DeCarlo (of Archie Fame) bases a gag drawing on America's favorite fetish model! The Bettie page photo is from a stereoslide of the model which circulated in the late 1950s. DeCarlo reportedly first freelanced for Archie Comics in the late 1950s. Betty and Veronica were created before DeCarlo took over the drawing duties, but certainly he was looking at some smut during his off hours.

BOOKS by The author available HERE and HERE

Workers Prep the NEW BIG SIGN (for something...)

Early automobile race? Horse race? Guesses? Somebody is going to need a whole lot of chalk. Undated Snapshot

Halloween with John Spicer of Brooklyn. Snake Suit and Demon Dress all in worsted wool

The John Spicer company, a factory actually, was located in Brooklyn. It started in 1888, and this catalog dates to around 1915, I believe. The Halloween "body dresses" were made of worsted wool.

John Spicer catalog circa 1915 Collection Jim Linderman
See also the books below by Jim Linderman

ECCENTRIC FOLK ART DRAWINGS OF THE 19TH AND 20TH CENTURIES

THE BIRTH OF ROCK AND ROLL

Vintage Folk Art Sculpture Carnival Ball Toss

Vintage Folk Art Sculpture Carnival Ball Toss Collection Jim Linderman

Apple Industrial Factory Die Cut

Wood with metal border, sharpened at edges for industrial cut of an apple form Undated, circa 1940.
Collection Jim Linderman

Witch with Pumpkin original anonymous watercolor dated 1911 Collection Jim Linderman

Witch with Pumpkin original watercolor dated 1911 Collection Jim Linderman
(See also the new book ECCENTRIC FOLK ART DRAWINGS:Obscure drawings of the 19th and 20th centuries)

BATS Miniature Watercolor c. 1910

Eccentric Folk Art Drawings of the 19th and 20th Centuries from the Jim Linderman Collection

SAMPLE PAGES FROM THE NEW BOOK ECCENTRIC FOLK ART DRAWINGS OF THE 19TH AND 20TH CENTURIES FROM THE JIM LINDERMAN COLLECTION Available NOW from Blurb.com
200 Pages. PDF version available soon ORDER HERE

Sunday Painter Fairy Diptych Painted Pixies

A Pair of Painted Pixies frolic in the buff. Estate Sale Find (two dollars for the pair.) Circa 1980.

Antique Scarecrow Photographic Essay Ephemeral Folk Art Sculpture at the Farm Collection Jim Linderman

Antique Scarecrow Photographic Essay Ephemeral Folk Art Figures at the Farm Collection Jim Linderman 19th and early 20 Century snapshots of working dummys! USE WITH PERMISSION ONLY. See also the new book THE BIRTH OF ROCK AND ROLL for a photograph collection and music book unlike any you have seen.

Yanks vs Cubs 1932 ? drawing of the Big Game

A young boy draws America's game in 1932. Cubs and Yanks appear on the scoreboard. The two teams played each other in the World Series in 1932 and 1938, but I am calling this undated drawing 1932 because it was the series Babe Ruth called his home run. Maybe he did it for the boy who drew this at home listening on the radio.

Obverse and Reverse Will You Sleep With Me Jac? Please?

Vintage Sleaze the Blog comes and goes without warning. It is currently on hiatus, but this couldn't wait. Original watercolor circa 1940 and reverse Will You Sleep with me Jac? Please? Collection Jim Linderman Stay tuned to Dull Tool Dim Bulb the Blog for upcoming projects. Thanks. Also of interest, The Birth of Rock and Roll is available from Amazon HERE and Dust to Digital HERE.

The Human Centipede Vernacular Photograph 1940

Original Photograph 1940 by Leslie H. Gardner. Collection Jim Linderman
Also of interest, The Birth of Rock and Roll is available from Amazon HERE and Dust to Digital HERE.

Folk Art Hooked Rugs Painted in Enamel A Handmade Salesman Sample Book

A beautiful salesman sample book with twenty hooked rug designs, each hand-painted in miniature by a Massachusetts woman by the name of J. A. Harlow. Not only are the samples beautiful and creative, they are rendered here in remarkable detail. Note prices! One of my favorite book titles is Anonymous was a Woman which detailed the extraordinary "women's work" created by artists who never signed their needlepoint, quilts, rugs and such. In this case, there is a name. The paintings are so beautiful, each could stand alone as a piece of wall art. The salesman sample book also has numerous descriptions, instructions to order, and not surprisingly a note to return the book in good condition! "Please be careful of it" reads one. I will.

J. A. Harlow's Homemade Salesman Sample of Hooked Rugs Collection Jim Linderman

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Jim Linderman

"...Linderman is widely regarded as one of the foremost figures in a field of vernacular art collectors working beyond the margins of most institutional axioms and impulses, in what is essentially it's own self-taught art form."
Ursula Magazine Hauser & Wirth 2019

"Linderman produces the most sublime books on dreamy, arcane subjects, sexy stuff, too, all with rare one-of-a-kind images." Craig Yoe 2017

"...disclosing an underground history of American popular culture one oddball tale at a time"
John Strausbaugh in The New York Times

"...one of the blog writers to watch for"
ARTSlant

"...wonderful, extraordinary, fascinating, remarkable and profound" Fans in a Flashbulb International Center of Photography Museum 2016

"Brilliantly Astute, Acerbic and Aesthetic Jim Linderman"
The Museum of Everything 2014

"Dull Tool Dim Bulb is always worth a visit" THINGS Magazine 2016

"...grumpy..." The Austin Chronicle 2014

"Perpetually ahead of the collecting curve...a one man Taschen. An authentically curious individual...diligently archiving the forgotten curiosities of American History"

Emma Higgins in Art Hack May 2012

"Jim Linderman likes Art, Antiques and Photography and his collection of Vernacular Photography, Folk Art, Ephemera and Curiosities is a wonderful place..."
LifeElsewhere with Norman B. 2014

"...collected over the years by Jim Linderman, a character who seems the perfect subject for a Harvey Pekar comic. Linderman treats collecting like a calling, and his finds have a resulting air of authority, stunning in their capture of bygone picturesque moments."
Derek Taylor Dusted

"The pictures, discarded artifacts of ecstatic Americana, come from the stash of Jim Linderman, who in his introduction recalls advice he’s plainly taken to heart: “Collect the heck” out of whatever you find interesting."
Drew Jubera Paste Magazine

"His interest in art is rivaled only by his interest in music, and one expression informs the other. He pursues objects with thoroughness and an innate sense of curiosity..."
Tanya Heinrich Folk Art Magazine

"Linderman acknowledges the obscure at the same time that he elevates it.... His collections tell vast stories in sotto voce, allowing curios and objects shadowed by mainstream culture and ideology to converse and be heard. What we hear is an enormous American sub-culture speaking in forbidden, marginalized languages: stuff discovered boxed in the attic out of embarrassment or zealotry, smutty ash trays crowing next to religious pamphlets, each claiming a part of the complex, sometimes contradictory, always conflicted American imagination, a chaos of memories that will one day vanish."
Joe Bonomo Author of Conversations With Greil Marcus, Jerry Lewis Lost and Found and No Such Thing As Was

"...he's one of the world's greatest pickers."
Brian Wallis in The New York Times

"Documenting--one clipping at a time--the scrapbook of a leg and garter aficionado that was dumpster-dived in Virginia in the 60s" "...an outstanding image-archaeologist who has compiled a shelf-ful of worthy and unique photographic histories."
William Smith Hang Fire Books

"Linderman has a knack for discovering untold stories and introducing them to a wider audience"
Joey Lin Anonymous Works

"Jim Linderman...makes us all look a little puny"
Could it be Madness-this?

"...insatiable collector of ephemera and ringleader behind an incredible circus of blogs — including the treasure trove dull tool dim bulb"
The Cynephile

"Yo no sé ustedes pero creo que es uno de los mejores sitios que he visitado en mucho tiemp"
Color Me in Blog

"...there's something beyond the endless photos and postcards and weird propaganda from another time that he lovingly documents - I think it's the collection as a whole, the portrait of a person fascinated with culture and communication. I have met people like this before, and in reading Dull Tool Dim Bulb I feel I have been lucky enough to meet one more. This site is a goldmine in terms of links..."
The Hyggelic Life October 2009

"Linderman is always on the lookout for the new and exciting"
Chuck and Jan Rosenak Contemporary American Folk Art

"...an amazing collection..."
Revel in New York October 2009

"Jim Linderman has a nice little colllection of interesting books and blogs...But every so often he just loses it."
American Digest March 2010

"FOR MOST OF HIS LIFE, COLLECTOR JIM LINDERMAN has searched high and low for authentic things--unique and special objects that define the artistic culture of the American experience. From folk art to popular culture, from pulp fiction to Delta Blues-- Jim is a walking authority on so many things American they are too numerous to mention. One thing is certain-- his collecting interests are for things that have fallen through the cracks, those things lost and forgotten--the box of material under the table at the flea market booth. If it wasn't for dedicated collectors like Jim Linderman-- so many important objects about our culture would have surely been lost to time and indifference."

"Jim Linderman maintains a most interesting blog about the most amazing things from his collection—a site he calls “Dull Tool Dim Bulb,” the only curse words his father ever uttered. I love it, and read it everyday."
"...an excellent writer and I devour your blog daily. I am impressed at your deep knowledge of things within your niche..."
John Foster Accidental Mysteries

"I am grateful to Jim Linderman for first alerting me to the existence of the 1930s Spiritualist hymn "Jesus is My Air-o-plane."
William Fagaly New Orleans Museum of Art, Author Tools of her Ministry: The art of Sister Gertrude Morgan

"Linderman describes a long gone world...(he) claims not to be a writer but he is most certainly an excellent researcher..."
BOOKSTEVE

"Jim Linderman, King of the Internet Ephemeral Arts"
Spaniel Rage

"Jim is a fantastic historian...show him some love"
Astrid Daley Fringe Pop / Sin-A-Rama

"Almost an experimental narrative"
Idiopath

"He came to us with hundreds of jaw-dropping baptism photos that he'd been collecting for 25 years," Ledbetter explains. "By the time he found us, he'd already done half a lifetime's works, and he trusted us to handle it properly." Lance Ledbetter in Creative Loafing 10/13/11

Fair Use

Though the images, which I have myself largely scanned from my personal collection of photographs and ephemera, some are subject to © by the artist, syndicate that distributed them or otherwise the individual artists. The use here is regardless covered by the U.S. fair use laws because:
1. The image illustrates an educational article; its inclusion in the article adds significantly to understanding the text because it is a historical sample of the art covered in the critical commentary, and shows use of an innovative style. Therefore the image substantially improves the educational value of the article.
2. The image is used as the primary means of visual identification of the article topic, which directly concerns a visual artist, and is indicative of the style for which hethe artists are renowned.
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Although most of the images here are original photography and objects owned by the author and in the author's personal collection, we cannot absolutely guarantee the exact copyright status of the items or offer written assurance that every or any aspect of this work is completely cleared for all usages. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests with persons desiring to use the item.

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